Scotland
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The McGinnis Family in Sligo, Ireland
On 28 March 2017, my husband Monte and I met in person with a genealogist who conducted research on the McGinnis and Munns families. This meeting took place at the Sligo Genealogy Center in Sligo, Ireland. I covered a bit of the Munns/Monds side in another blog; however, this account covers findings on the McGinnis side. How I’m Tied to the McGinnises Growing up in Rock Rapids, IA, I was close to my maternal grandma, Isabelle Antoinette Kellihan Munns. I got to know her mother and my great-grandmother, Frances Mae Sample Kellihan, when I was in my early elementary years. She was a competitive little lady who didn’t like to…
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My Amazing Mom
This last week, my amazing mom passed away unexpectedly. She had been dealing with advanced kidney disease since late 2019 but had maintained with meds. She had just gotten on the kidney transplant list in late April 2020. Soon after, her blood levels were all over the place. Two days after her 68th birthday on May 24, she went into the hospital with kidney complications for several days and then was released. A day later, she had a stroke and aneurysm at home. Doctors tried to address the aneurysm and bleeding on her brain, but the compounding of health issues meant surgery was not an option. We lost her to…
- Galway, Germany, Iowa, Ireland, Jesse James, Kellihan, Munns/Monds, Payne, Robert Burns, Rock Rapids, Scotland
How the Genealogy Bug Bit Me
At more than 40 years old, I’ve been blessed to grow up around extended family, at least for one side of my family. (Unfortunately, my dad’s side lived at least a five-hours drive away in southern Iowa and northern Missouri.) When I was in second grade, we moved to my mom’s hometown of Rock Rapids, IA, where at first we lived a mile from my maternal grandparents, Gerald and Isabelle (Kellihan) Munns. Getting to Know My Grandparents For about five years, it took us just a few minutes to drive to grandma and grandpa’s house. There were also many summer days when we rode our bikes to their farmhouse. When…
